Obama Increases Allowable Levels of Radiation in Drinking Water ‘Dramatically’

Japanese government official has reported, “I was overwhelmed by the amount of contaminated water coming from the reactors, we must dump it in the ocean.” This isn’t such great news for the US since President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently gave their approval for “dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs.”

The Nuclear Industry calls this their “new normal,” according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

The EPA has issued radiation guides called Protective Action Guides or PAGs which allows more radiation than any American has ever been exposed to. Within the guides, are instructions for evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.”

Wouldn’t the massive break down of reactor number one at Fukushima be considered a ‘radiological emergency?”

Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, made the comment Dec. 12 about dumping radioactive waste into the ocean.

The US governments PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period. Many experts are expecting elevated cancer rates due to these “allowable” levels of radiation exposure.

The PAGs are the work of Gina McCarthy, the assistant administrator for air and radiation whose nomination to serve as EPA Administrator was only approved by the Senate a few months ago.

It is suggested that these PAGs have been in the works for over two years and are just recently available for public view.

PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said:

“This is a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace. If this typifies the environmental leadership we can expect from Ms. McCarthy, then [the] EPA is in for a long, dirty slog.”

“No compelling justification is offered for increasing the cancer deaths of Americans innocently exposed to corporate miscalculations several hundred-fold.”